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Hungary sentences 10 migrants to jail

Ten migrants, including three disabled people, who crossed into Hungary during a riot in September have been sentenced to jail.

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Source: AAP


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A Hungarian court has sentenced 10 migrants to jail terms for illegally crossing the border during a riot in September 2015, after Hungary built a razor wire fence to seal its frontier with Serbia.

It was the first case to come to trial under a law passed days before the incident that made illegal border crossing as part of a rioting crowd punishable by between one and five years in prison.

Nine of the migrants were sentenced to about a year in jail, but were released immediately as their sentences were cut by two thirds at the judge's discretion and offset by time they had spent in detention since September.

One migrant was kept behind bars after receiving a three-year sentence for issuing instructions to rioters through a loudspeaker.

Those convicted included three disabled people, one of whom was pushed across the border in a wheelbarrow by a helper.

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The three had their sentences suspended.

All ten are to be expelled after serving their terms, and barred from re-entering Hungary for several years.

Both the prosecutor and defence appealed against Friday's ruling.

Nearly half the more than a million migrants who surged into Europe last year passed through Hungary, often causing chaos at borders and along the main migration routes.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has taken a tough line against migration, and says the European Union risks seeing other member states follow Britain to the exit unless it does the same.


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